


Gel

by AlexRoyale



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 22:59:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexRoyale/pseuds/AlexRoyale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bret Hart finally gets his night to put the past to bed, and it's the night of his Hall of Fame induction.</p>
<p> Little does he know how true that statement will be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gel

  
_ BRET_  
  
  
I don't want to understand tonight. I don’t want to pick it apart and analyse it. I just wanted to enjoy my moment, and sit in the dark with my music. Just let go. Chill the fuck out.   
Yet there he is, stretched out on my hotel sofa like he owns it. So here I go: my lust, his need, his beauty, my loneliness, our mutual passion; these things I understand. He's the bad guy, I'm the good guy—he's the betrayer and I the betrayed—he's the liar and all I want from him is the truth, that's the way we are. The way we’ve always been. Are we always going to be this way?   
The night went well, I couldn’t deny that. As far as denial went, I was pretty much done with it. For this one night, I was going to get everything I damn well wanted. And I was going to say what I pleased. Still, I’d really said everything I wanted to say up there at the podium.   
Ok, that’s a lie. I didn’t say everything. I couldn’t. The one person I wanted to say everything to wasn’t even in the crowd, and I’d made sure of that. Self-sabotage, one of the many things I excel at....   
The night suits him. I can believe things about him in the dark that I have never wanted to face in daylight.   
And seeing him now, his name is as much a challenge for me to say in a softly-lit room than in an auditorium full of silent waiting faces. Shawn’s name always struck me as the most intimate word I could say. To me it can be an oath, a curse, a word of pure bliss or seething hatred. He is all of these things to me at once. He always moves and talks with his eyes first. Ten years gone, and that hasn’t changed.   
  
 _In the heat of the day  
Every time you go away   
I have to piece my life together   
Every time you’re away   
In the heat of the day   
In the dark of the night   
Every time I turn the light   
I feel that God is not in heaven   
In the dark of the night   
The dark of the night _  
  
His eyes find mine and they don’t stray. I marvel how his eyes always tell a different story...and I bet that’s why he’s not talking. Eyes so large and clear, that I believe if I stare too long into them, I will fall and drown. They’re a wide and clear vivid blue, and they show me a truth too naked for me to misunderstand.   
  
 _I wonder why I live alone here  
I wonder why we spend these nights together   
Is this the room I’ll live my life forever   
I wonder why in L.A   
To live and die in L.A   
I wonder why we waste our lives here   
When we could run away to paradise   
But I am held in some invisible vice   
And I can’t get away   
To live and die in L.A   
_  
He’s not my friend, but he’s here with me now and his eyes and soft voice promise a peace I used to know. His smile is slow and beckoning and so fucking sweet and I am not afraid. He is in so many ways inexplicable. I feel my body begin to thrum with a deep inner pulse. I honestly haven't wanted to be satisfied like this in ages. I want it now, and I want him to be the one who takes me there. I think he may be the only one who can. Who ever could.   
  
 _If I let myself go  
And for where I just don’t know   
I’d maybe hit some cold new river   
That led out to the sea   
An unknown sea   
I’d either swim or I’d drown   
Or just keep falling down and down   
I think it’s that, that makes me quiver   
Just to keep falling down   
Down, down, down _  
  
=== 

_SHAWN._

  
I don’t know what I’m doing here, standing outside his hotel room door on Wrestlemania weekend. All I do know is that my feet and heart conspired against my mind and now I’m here. I’m just standing here.   
  
Earlier tonight, all I was doing was sitting. Sitting in a crowd, and then sitting alone in a room with a TV. Hunter offered to sit with me, hell, even Vince offered to sit with me, but I said no. I needed the space, and the quiet. Plus, it’d just look bad for Hunter to be missing as well. Hunter was always guilty by association, and I thought that was wrong, after all this time, for him to not be able to be out there.   
  
From what I saw, Bret didn’t seem to take an issue with Hunter being front row. Not like he could, with Stephanie and Linda and Shane beside him.   
  
Anyway....   
  
I wasn’t in the audience to see Bret’s induction...but I was there. Equal parts wary of what would be said, and perhaps what I would incite by merely sitting there in full view of him and several cameras, and my peers, and fans. Like if I’d looked his way, or smiled, or frowned, or laughed, or made any sort of expression at all, it’d be sheer chaos.   
  
So why am I standing here again?   
  
I’m standing here because of what I saw, and of what he’d said. He’d said my name almost like he was talking to me. He faltered, he stumbled...I saw it in his face and I heard it in his voice, and while it wasn’t the olive branch or the white dove of peace, it was enough for me to realize that by coming here tonight, the last possible thing he’d think of doing to me when he opened the door was punch me in the face.   
  
So I knock, a soft tapping of knuckles on oak. I don’t want to fight. I don’t. Not tonight, not anymore.   
Idly, I think, I hope no one sees me here. That’d just get the dirt sheets screaming, and then look down the halls nervously. Not that I have any specific hatred for them, they’re actually funny, even with what they do get right, it’s just that I want tonight to just be for him. There, I said it. It’s his night, he should enjoy it.   
  
I have a plan, I’m just gonna take it easy. See where we go. No harm, no foul...   
  
I raise my hand to knock again, checking furtively to my right and left for any passers-by that may be within distance, and my knuckles touch..not the door...but warm cotton. I’ve just put my hand within Bret Hart for the first time in more than a decade, and it doesn’t feel that long ago at all when I gladly put everything within his reach....and all either of us can say in that hanging moment is “Hi.”   
  
It’s a start, as far as greetings go. It’s not a blackened eye or a swollen jaw, so I’m optimistic.   
  
He opens the door wider, stepping back from my hand with a grace I never forgot he had. I can hear faint music from the one earbud that dangles on his chest. Seems I’ve interrupted him, but he doesn’t look annoyed. He looks content. I step inside, fully expecting a headlock when the door shuts softly behind us. It doesn’t happen. Instead, he pulls the remaining earbud free and winds the wires around his IPod, placing it on a small endtable near his couch. His next words floor me, “Sit down, stay a while.”   
  
So I sit, with my back straight, and my hands folded. Nothing that would hint at arrogance, comfort, or aggression. And then he looks at me and smiles, You want a drink?” I shake my head at his perceived offer of alcohol, but what he extends to me is a bottle of spring water. I reach out and our fingers brush – cold water and hot skin, and I have to remind myself to breathe. Bret either takes no notice or chooses to hide his reaction. At this point, I’m just viciously thirsty, so I drink what was offered, in several long swallows. If he’s poisoned me, I think wryly, I’ll find out pretty quick.   
  
=== 

_BRET_  
  
I was just lazing on the couch, listening to some music when I heard that noise. A soft sound against my door, followed by the shadows underneath of someone shifting their feet. Shadows from someone who was cautious. A fan? Someone I knew? I got up to look through the spyhole and was greeted by a strange and familiar sight.   
  
Yeah.   
  
Someone I knew.   
  
I could keep the door shut. I could ignore the man standing on the other side. Shawn on one side and me on the other. Like it should be. Safe, and separated.   
  
Like it should be?   
  
God hates a coward, right? At least I do.   
  
I open the door and await the anger to arrive and just blow my sense of calm to smithereens. But it doesn’t show. It doesn’t even call to tell me it may be late. My anger, that old reliable friend, has stood me up. I almost smile. At Shawn. Instead, it’s just a “Hi” he gets, instead of the incredulous laugh I want to let out.   
I let him in the room, and keep the laughter to myself. I don’t feel like explaining myself, as he won’t understand.   
  
So we sit, separate. Him on one side of the room, and me on the other. He doesn’t look uncomfortable. We’re just two people right now sharing space.   
  
But this is huge...the last ten minutes, I’ve not only stood face to face with Shawn, I’ve invited him into my hotel room, and treated him like a guest. I’ve managed to treat Shawn Michaels like a human being for the first time in a long time. My anger is still M.I.A, and I find I’m not mourning its absence. I think that’s what makes this all work. If I’m not mad, Shawn doesn’t get defensive, and I don’t end up punching him in the mouth, or scalping him.   
  
He’s staring off out the balcony window from where he’s sitting, and fiddling with the plastic cap that was on the bottle I gave him. He’s picking at the plastic inside, and it’s making this tic tic tic noise. He can’t sit still. He never could. Except he’s not nervous...he’s waiting.   
  
For what I can’t guess anymore, and I used to be able to read him like a book. My phone rings in the other room and I excuse myself by standing up and walking away. I catch questioning raised eyebrows and curious eyes following me out of the room. I roll my shoulders once out of sight and pick up my cell. By the time I’m done on the phone, he’ll be gone.   
  
The call is Nattie, telling me that she and the kids are going out to see the sights and that she’ll call me later when they’re coming back. This makes me oddly happy for reasons I don’t want to explore. Or maybe I do.   
  
Ok, I do.   
  
I tell Nattie to have fun, and to watch her cousins closely. She laughs that crazy laugh that reminds me of Jim, and then tells me I have nothing to worry about. I really don’t. Maybe it’s me that needs to be watched. I consider this as I hang up and put the phone down. Shawn’s probably gone. I didn’t hear him leave, but I think he has. He was always good at that.   
  
I shrug and walk back into the living area, and stop.   
  
He’s listening to my IPod...and he’s asleep on my couch.   
  
Paging Anger, where are you?   
  
Anytime now.   
  
Any time.   
  
I sigh.   
  
And I watch.   
  
  
=== 

_SHAWN_  
  
I’m sitting here, waiting for the other shoe to drop, figuratively. There’s this crazy hyper-awareness running through me. I’m trying not to focus on Bret, as I’m still wondering if he’s just going to walk back in here and deck me.   
  
If he was going to, he already would have when he’d opened the door. The fact that I’m sitting here tells me we might just have a civil conversation.   
  
Yet my guard goes down when I know it shouldn’t. But it’s Bret, my mind whispers. And again, but it’s Bret, and I know him, and that’s all I need. I think this might be the first time I’ve ever been relaxed around Bret in a long while. There could be a chance to mend what can’t be fixed. Nah, there’s no fixing that. A chance to move forward even...bygones and all that. I’m certainly not looking for absolution here.   
It’s quiet when the phone rings. We’re just looking at one another, I’m trying to read his face, and I know he’s doing the same. He gets up without a word and goes into the next room, with me still staring at him. Odd that I’d think about absolution here, and now. God sees all right? So I can’t hide, and I find I don’t want to. God’s my judge, not Bret...so there’s the peace of mind I have. I’m not here for me.   
Bret’s still on the phone, and he didn’t tell me to leave, so I look around and see his IPod. I’ve always had this curiousity for everything, and I love music... I’m wondering what he listens to, so I unwrap the earbuds, turn it on and hit Shuffle...   
  
 _Beggar's description  
Of what I've been missing   
Exploit your position   
Don't think I didn't listen   
Hey I hope you're feeling   
A little better now   
Success is so tragic   
Pain is your gadget   
Your tongue is just lashing   
Just bitching by habit   
Hey I hope you're feeling   
A little purer now   
Hey I hope you're feeling   
Securer now... _  
  
It’s not a bad song – great guitar riff, good singer. I shut my eyes and sink into the couch. This could count as grounds to getting my ass thrown out the door, but I’ve always pushed my luck and Bret’s patience for as long as we’ve known each other. That’ll never change. Never. We throw sparks, we just don’t mesh...and in our own strange way, that’s how it should be. It strikes me now, poetic, now that I’m older, a little wiser, and benefitting from four years of introspection, rehabilitation and a fresh start at what I love to do, that Bret and I are always two sides of the same coin, so similar in some respects and radically different in others. What’s the word, like that Blake poem, symmetry...that’s it.   
Eyes still shut, Shuffle again, new song...mean groove, great sound...could really move to this one...   
  
 _Color me any color  
Speak to me in tongues and share   
Tell me how you'd love to hate me   
Tell me how you'd love to care   
Well I just want to shake us up   
Let's mingle   
And make it well   
Come together now   
Yeah let's gel   
Clothe me in any fashion   
Glitter too, so mundane   
Tell me how you'd love to change me   
Tell me I can stay the same   
I just want to shake us up   
Let's mingle   
And make it well   
Come together now   
Yeah let's gel   
Well let's live to tell   
How we came together   
Yeah how we gelled   
_  
The sound of a throat being cleared. I open my eyes, and there he is, watching me, staring at me sprawled on his couch, listening to his music...intruding on his tranquillity , or whatever... And just when I think he won’t say anything, one word comes out.   
  
“Judas.”   
  
Just that. That one word, and there’s no viciousness in his voice, just a soft finality. I smile, and it starts slow. It’s funny, his choice of words. I want to point out the huge flaw in his reasoning. I’m not Judas, and he’s no Saviour. But it always came down like this...this thing we always seem to be doing.   
We were never friends. Ever. But there’s a sense of connection. We’re both amazing in the ring together and apart. That seemed to be the only place in the world we could co-exist, and it was for a time. As much as he hates me, and whatever’s left of what I don’t like about Bret, we’re untouchable in that ring, and we both know it.   
  
And then there was the sex...hell, does anyone really need a reason to sleep with someone? With Bret and I, that was the thing, the more we wound each other up and pissed each other off, the hotter it got.   
  
We literally got off on making each other livid. I don’t think there’s a psychiatrist in the world who could sit us down and sort us out. It wasn’t just sex – amazing sex that it was – it was an electricity, a chemistry that I’ve never found with anyone since. Not that I went looking for it, I just never found it again.   
  
And it’s that word that throws the switch, that gives me the opportunity, and I think that’s what he intended all along.   
  
I stand up, pulling the earbuds out, silencing the music, and hearing nothing but the ringing roar of blood in my ears. I’m in that white-noise high stage I only ever get in the ring, or anywhere with Bret.   
I hear it again, he says it again, softer this time, “Judas.”   
  
I close the distance between us, a scant five feet, and exult in the look of confusion I see when I take his face in my hands and kiss him long on the lips. I’m breathing into him, tasting him, and he’s letting me. His hands aren’t quite sure where to be, but they aren’t pushing me away, so I move in close. I feel his hands on my hair, half-expecting him to yank more of it from my scalp but he just pulls the tie off that keeps it in its ponytail and tangles his fingers in it.   
  
Another word escapes from him while I pull away to breathe, and it’s my name I hear – low and rasping like I’ve remembered it. It still has the power to turn me on like nothing else. Bret’s hands move down my neck as I smell and feel and taste him again. Down past my shoulders now, to my hips, pulling me against him, crushing the empty space that was between us.   
  
Yeah, he remembers. He’s as hard as I am, and can’t wait. I kick off my shoes and he unbuttons my shirt, careful not to tear it. I’m thinking of all the times we literally tore everything off each other, pulling and grasping. Not now. We can’t afford to do that...same as we can’t afford to do this, but I don’t care. He doesn’t either. Not with the way his cock is pressing against me, and the way his hands are pulling at my clothes.   
  
Bret keeps me close all the way to his bed and I let him. He kisses me deeply, his tongue against mine, hot and eager. I love how his muscles tremble under my hands, how his breath feels against my skin, and how his eyes look at me now. They’re nearly black with need. I touch his face, inviting him back to kiss me again and he does, this time soft and slow. Once he slows down I know I’ve got his attention. “Shawn, Shawn please, “ he whispers against my neck, his mouth is like a brand, and everything it touches burns. His eyes never leave me until I unzip his pants and feel the warm heavy length of him filling my hands. Bret nearly yells when I wrap my hand around it, and tighten my grip.   
  
“Shawn, I wanna see you.” The way he chokes out my name goes into my ears, down my spine and straight to my cock. So I do what he wants – almost. I take everything off save for my dress slacks. He looks genuinely hurt at that. Nice job, Shawn, you idiot ,I think to myself sadly. Yet, Bret’s eyes are all over me like my hands are all over him. His death grip on the sheets tells me he’s gonna come soon, and I’ve only just touched him. My hands remember how he likes to be touched. I’ve never forgotten... I just haven’t needed to remember. His skin is smooth and hot, and I close my hand tighter, downstroking. Bret snarls and throws my name at me like a curse. Once I upstroke, I’m running my thumb softly over the head of his cock, coating it with his precum. He’s pissed, but he’s not telling me to stop, and he’s certainly not fighting me. I stroke down again, and there’s my name again, softer though and nearly pleading. I find the rhythm, keeping time with his voice. Down. “Shawn...” Then up. “Oh Shawn...” And then down again. “Shawn...” Bret says my name over and over so much he probably forgets his own in the process.   
We were always good at that. Skip the conversation, to hell with the foreplay, just get down to it. We didn’t really need foreplay if we were in the ring at all every night.   
  
Bret’s really close now, his eyes are closing, and his breath is shortening...so he doesn’t see me as I drop down and cover him with my mouth. The yell it wrings out of him is proof enough I still know what makes him all hot and bothered. It’s me.   
  
Bret still tastes the same – musk, salt, and sweat. I crouch over him, sucking slowly, my tongue stroking around the head of his cock, and not caring that my own feels like lead at the moment. It’s not about me, I remind myself. I relax my throat, and concentrate, taking him further down, swallowing around him, hearing him get so close. I feel his pulse with my tongue, and it thrills me. Bret’s so close he’s shaking. He puts a hand back in my hair, and I know what he wants to do, but he’s trying not to let himself go...   
  
== 

_BRET_  
  
I’m seeing him there on my couch, oblivious to the room around him. I can’t stop staring. Shawn’s eyes are closed and he’s beautiful. Where was this Shawn all my life? This man, so calm, so serene...someone I can actually talk to now. We used to laugh, he and I. He’s always had an amazing laugh, and he was such a goof before the drugs and the bullshit.   
I still can’t stop staring at him. He’s not really asleep...but nearly. I hear him whisper-singing along to the music he hears and his voice is doing to me something I haven’t felt in a long time.   
  
“Judas, “ I say to myself. The more I look, the more I wanna touch him. So I should stop looking, right? What Shawn’s doing on my couch right now, watching him is turning me on in the worst yet best way.   
  
Oh shit. He heard me. Did I say that out loud? Shit! Oh fuck fuck SHIT. When my inside voice decides to make itself heard, I’m never prepared. But this timing is horrible. Most horrible time EVER. Great job there, Bret. You asshole. You pissed him off. He looks kinda...   
  
Oh.   
  
Oh man.   
  
Shawn stands up and strides right up to me, and I watch his eyes flare as he touches me and stops my idiotic question that wants to be heard (What are you doing, Shawn?) when he steals the air out of my lungs as he kisses me. I’m trying to breathe and it only pulls his mouth more heavily on mine. Maybe I should shove him and tell him what the hell he’s doing...though if he gets any closer he’ll know damn fast.   
  
He knows.   
  
Of course he knows.   
  
I get it now. I know exactly what Shawn does to me – like base jumping without a parachute. It’s pure freefall. I think I wanna stop but I just keep falling as we breathe into each other. In freefall, there’s nothing to grab onto but air...I don’t even have the air to breathe. And I don’t care. The only thing I have to hold onto is Shawn, so I wrap him in my arms and pull him down to me, because I don’t want to fall alone.   
  
He’s so damn gentle. He kicked the shit out of me night after night in the ring, and now he’s just so fucking gentle. He’s so careful with me and I don’t really know why...he’s not timid, he’s just deliberate...like he’s...   
He’s memorizing me. Every touch of his lips to mine, to my cheeks, my forehead, down my neck, and everywhere.   
  
Oh Shawn.   
  
We’re so screwed up.   
  
Any other thought I might have had is shattered at the touch of Shawn’s hand to my cock.   
His hand feels so damn good that I just shut my eyes and try to breathe. I can feel it building in my spine, the rush, the adrenaline... I hear myself say softly, “Shawn I wanna see you..” and I can’t believe my own words. But I don’t care.   
  
I’m so close to coming right now, that the room around me starts to blur. I can see Shawn, and how the muscles in his arm flex around me, making that tattoo I always said I hated ripple.   
  
I shut my eyes for a moment and then shout at the feeling of his mouth and tongue all over me. My lungs are burning, all of me is burning, and there’s a spreading heat rushing up my spine. Shawn’s taking me deeper, swallowing around me, humming, vibrating his mouth, coaxing my impending orgasm closer. My whole being is centered around this man and what he’s doing to me. There’s a wonderful freedom I feel by just letting him.   
  
I trust him.   
  
How the fuck did THAT happen?   
I’m losing myself in the sensation of Shawn and my own memories when I feel his mouth leave me, and then he straddles my chest, fully nude ( he was always good at taking off his clothes) and lowers himself over my cock, and I slide into him with a cry.   
  
He’s so hot, and strong and tight, and as he rocks over me, I think I might die from how goddamn good he feels. I don’t want him to stop, and I hear myself moan, “You gotta move, you gotta move faster Shawn...gotta feel you, feel all of you...”   
  
And he does move. God, can he move.   
  
What I don’t expect is Shawn pulling me towards him as he rocks on my hips, to kiss me some more. He’s all around me, completely. That rhythm, like a heartbeat...   
  
I feel complete.   
  
Oh, I am so screwed up.   
  
I look around and all I see is Shawn. His forehead’s pressed to mine and my vision is filled with the blue of his eyes, my mouth with the taste of him, my nose with the scent of him, of him and I. Pure sensory overload. I’m addicted to it. He makes me feel alive.   
I hold him close as we move, my hands pressed to his back, feeling the scar, thinking about all our scars.   
  
There’s no pain in this room, no past, there’s no hate.   
  
I break away to tell Shawn something, it rushed to me, it was the best thing I could think to say, and it’s lost in our combined orgasm. I want to scream, but Shawn quiets me with a heart-stopping kiss, and I breathe into him again. I can breathe again, and I know it’s because of him.   
  
I’m so elated and drained, falling back against the mattress, Shawn on top of me. He cradles my head, whispering against my skin, what he’s saying I can’t make out, but that’s okay. I had something to say, but the moment’s gone now. That’s okay.   
I’m okay.   
We’re okay.   
  
=== 

_SHAWN_  
  
I’m falling. It’s freefall, except Bret’s with me. He holds me like I used to let myself be held, and for right now, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I need to say something, I need to, but my mind’s so jumbled up I doubt I’d make any sense. I’m pressing my lips to his, to any part of him I can get, thinking, “This is for you, for you, for you. It’s not enough but it’s all I can give freely...”   
When I open my eyes I realize I’ve said it out loud, and I don’t think he heard me.   
But he’s smiling at me, still holding me close. I’m gonna need to leave soon, but I can go knowing he’s okay.   
I’m okay.   
And we’re okay.   
I smile back at him, and close my eyes.   
This is the memory I will keep with me.

**Author's Note:**

> Songs used are : "To Live and Die in L.A" by Wang Chung; "Smashing Young Man" by Collective Soul, and "Gel" by Collective Soul, which is the song the story is named after.


End file.
